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For some reason THIS is THE episode of Ozzie and Harriet that comes to mind whenever anybody mentions The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet Show. That bridge game, the Cokes in that knotty pine kitchen, and the business about that author in the malt shop - I remember it clearly. I was in the fourth grade and probably real excited that week because summer vacation was a week or so away. June 8th 1960 was a Wednesday - that's the night I remember that show being on - and at 7:30 PM in that era.

In this particular episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, “No News for Harriet,” Harriet becomes annoyed with Ozzie for not sharing his every day activities with her. Throughout the episode Ozzie tries in different ways to explain to Harriet that he does nothing interesting enough to tell her. Harriet has heard otherwise. Harriet’s misconceptions come from Ozzie’s friend, Joe, who tells his wife, Clara, fake stories so that she will be “happy.” When Ozzie confronts Joe about his lies, Joe insists that Ozzie do the same as he does. Once the shenanigans have gone too far, in a mix up with Harriet’s “Women’s Club,” Ozzie, Joe and Harriet get caught up in a comical ending resulting in complete resolution of all problems. Joe promises not to tell any more lies and Ozzie promises Harriet that he will try to tell her everything that he can think of that happens during his daily life away from her.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet fell under the genre “comedy.” The kinds of shows that were also airing under this genre at the time were Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. All of these shows had a family comedy quality to them, which was popular at the time. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet originally aired on October 3rd, 1952 and ended on March 26th, 1966. “Ozzie and Harriet” was a successful half hour sitcom airing on ABC and was produced by Stage Five Productions. It ran for a whopping fourteen seasons and was number twenty-ninth in the Neilson ratings for its eleventh season only. For its first four seasons it ran on Friday nights at 8:00, for its fifth and sixth seasons it ran at 9:00, for its seventh through ninth seasons it ran at 8:30, and for its tenth through fourteenth seasons it ran at 7:30.
Overall this episode was very entertaining. There are elements of strength and weakness shown in the plot structure and writing that I had noticed. The plot is very comical and leads to a mix up with communication. At the end everyone’s issues are resolved and there is a lesson learned. While, both of these things are well presented within the plot, there are some weaknesses. For example, Harriet never gets more than just annoyed with Ozzie for not telling her everything she’s heard about him. If the writing had allowed her to become angrier with Ozzie, then there would have been a more urgent sense to solve the issue and the climax of the show would have been more intense. The show itself was fun to watch and represented its genre very well. It was good clean family fun!

The music from 9:50-10:20 was used regularly in My Three Sons, which began in 1960.

One reviewer of The Pancake episode compared Ozzie and Harriet to Seinfeld, and I think he was correct.

(end service announcement): 37,000 people killed in automobiles in 1959. That's 100 people each day. In the last half century there could well have been 2 million Americans killed in cars. Surely death by automobile is an unspoken epidemic in our society. Amazing how we manage to go on ignoring something so huge.